A/N: Here you go- an actual-factual update. I told you they were coming. :)
Note, I have deleted the petition chapter for this story- I'll be doing that with all of them as I update, but I figure they aren't going to be necessary that long, one way or the other.

This is the last chapter in the arc (the first of three I have planned), and winds down the action of last chapter. Rest assured, there's still a little action, but it's mostly set-up for the next and concluding the first. Still, the real meat of the next arc won't be explained yet... just hinting at it.
Enjoy!

Chap. 11 Stable is as Stable does

"You again? Still got that horrible monster with you, I see. This your woman?"

Duncan frowned, Amber snorted. "She's not 'my woman', she's her own person, but yes, this is the one I was trying to find. Her name's Amber."

The guard, the only one at the Canterbury gates he recognized, nodded toward the trio for the benefit of the rest, "I told you there was a psycho wanderin' 'round with a pet Deathclaw. Still can't let it into the city, man, Roe's orders. He said he wanted to talk to you before even thinkin' on it."

Duncan nodded, "Makes sense. Where can I find him?"

But as he moved to step past the guards, the spokesman held up a hand in the universeal 'stop' gesture, "Hold on! I'm still not lettin' that thing get anywhere close to me. You best tie it up at the same tree you used before, 'less you want us to use it as target practice. Make sure it don't get loose, neither."

With a shrug, Duncan complied. While he was doing so, with Amber attempting to soothe the suddenly-whining Deathclaw, she whispered, "Can we really trust these guys? The people I talked to inside when I was here a few days ago mentioned that the guards sometimes get a bit rough."

"Nothing we can do about it if we can't," he replied in the same low tone, "but I don't think they can bring him down. If they open fire, he'll chew or slash through the rope and take them out. That'd be bad for us, but he'd be fine."

Somehow, he knew from the expression on her face, Amber wasn't much reassured.

(O)(O)(O)

"Stupid Wasteland! Stupid psychatric fees! Stupid Raiders! Stupid- Ow!"

Duncan's grumbling rapidly regressed to cursing and even lower, less-polite mutters as he hopped around on one foot, clutching his other foot with both hands. The sturdy boots he'd been walking around in, the best (in his opinion) equipment he'd gained from Vault One-Hundred, had seen better days. Perhaps kicking aside some of the heavy steel and concrete before the door to the RobCo Robot Repair Center had not been the best idea.

"Aaargh! This sucks!" he screamed to the sky, then bent and, with a grunt of pain and frustration, hurled the offending beam over, away from the door. "I can't believe this is going to cost so much! She was almost raped and killed, almost eaten, and I have to pay ten thousand caps for a shrink to come up and help her? Damn it, where am I gonna get that kinda money?"

His guide, a scruffy-looking old man who went by the name of 'Dom', spit to the side and replied, "Best place to get money 'round here's this building. Anyway, I decided I don't need no payment. Was a nice little walk, aside from your bitchin'. You have a nice day, and don't let the robots kill ya'."

For a few long seconds, Duncan watched the older gentleman- because he had very much been a gentleman, despite the numerous battle-scars and casual ease with which he carried the beat-up assault rifle on his back- walk back across the shattered parking lot toward the hill leading into town. "Damn," he muttered, "I guess I can't argue with free, but I could have used another gun if there's active robots in here. Stupid security!"

He made to kick the pile of rubble again, but caught himself just in time. Breathing a sigh of relief, he called out, "Hey, you sure this place is at least mostly safe?"

Dom turned and walked backwards for a few steps, grinning, "Yeah! Round 'bout ten years back, that Lone Wanderer girlie came in, convinced The Mechanist and his 'arch rival' The AntAgonizer to clear out. He took most o' his machines with 'im. Still here reports of danger, but I imagine it's been mostly cleaned up by the other looters that've come since!"

Without another word, Dom gave a casual wave, turned back in the direction of Canterbury Commons, and continued on his way.

It took nearly an hour for Duncan to shift enough rubble from the most-recent collapse of the building's exterior to get the main entrance open. Once inside, he almost wished he hadn't bothered. The place was a wreck. While there were certainly signs in the lobby that it had weathered the nuclear war rather well, ten years of looters- er, scavengers- had undoubtedly taken their toll. Stripped-out shells of Protectrons, several models, judging by the paint jobs littered the small lobby. Further on, a three-legged Security Bot was even more stripped, down to just a mangled skeleton and a single machne-gun arm, which was itself missing several parts.

"Hell," he muttered, then moved in to take a better look. There had to be at least some parts in here. Something he could sell for a down-payment on Amber's treatments. Because he would be damned himself if he'd let her nightmares continue another day if he could help it.
They hadn't started right away. In fact, aside from that first big cry she'd had the day he'd rescued her, Amber had seemed fine. But two days in, the night after they'd arrived at the Trading Post for the first time, he'd been woken by horrified screaming. It took nearly a minute for his adrenaline to calm enough to realize they were not under attack. At least, not physically.

Instead, Amber was thrashing about her bed, screaming for "Sweaty" and "Grimey" to stop, to leave her alone, not to hurt her, not to...

In a flash, or at least a quick hustle, he'd been across the tiny room Roe had allotted in the combination hostel-business he ran and at her side. The black eye he'd received before she woke up had been unnoticed until the next morning, but it had taken him actually waking Amber up and climbing into the bedroll with her before she calmed, and even then she sobbed fitfully through the night rather than sleeping deeply.
He, himself, hadn't had a wink of sleep in two days, worrying about her.

"Maybe that's why I'm so grumpy..." he mused.
As tired eyes continued to scan the dusty, dark offices which ran left from the lobby, Duncan continued to gripe about how much it was going to cost. The psychiatrist Roe had contacted for him (the man was, no matter his mercenary- or at least merchant- bent, very helpful) resided in "Rivet City", wherever that was. A long way, out in the Wastes, regardless. She had only asked for a total of two thousand caps for a six-month treatment, any recurring problems that cropped up later included (as long as the doctor survived). However, the fees for the doctor coming up to Canterbury, or, Duncan's preference, Big Town, were astronomical. Food, clean water, guards... room and board, even though he'd offered to let the doctor stay at his home free, all added up. Six months of supporting another person and paying for medical bills? He'd have been working in a career for ten or twenty years in the old world before he could've afforded such a thing- and that was with insurance.

How would he do such a thing in this devastated world where almost nothing made sense?

But he had to try. Several people in the town had suggested he try scavving in the repair center, and a couple had been polite enough to send him to Dom, who'd offered to take him there for a few caps. But it would take, according to his estimates, a major haul to come up with that kind of money. Still, the doctor had been nice enough to start the journey for two thousand, as long as he could continue paying two thousand per month until it was paid off. It was a tall order, but Duncan would do what he had to. Amber needed him, and that was all there was to it.

Just as he'd made that resolution, he stepped from the office into the main repair bay of the center.

And got shot, with a high-power laser, right in the shoulder.

"Damn it!" he shouted, throwing himself back behind the wall, "I thought this place was safe!"

For a moment after, he listened. There was no whir of wheels, no clank of a Protectron's steps. As far as he could tell, nothing was coming closer. The laser, a bright red beam, had flashed for a moment out of the darkness at the far end of the bay, and he hadn't seen it. But it had been high up.
Wincing, he pulled back the leather armor on the shoulder, and, before he could bring himself to look at the actual wound, peered through the hole at the ground below. "This is so not my day..." he muttered, then forced his eyes further down.

The wound had, fortunately, mostly cauterized. It appeared to go in about three centimeters in a mostly-smooth divot, which was only oozing blood slightly between the cracked, blackened flesh. Of course, it was terribly painful, but Duncan was nothing if not a realist. He had to treat it, yes, but safety came first. Taking just a moment to rip the cover from one of the stimpacks in the pocket of his leather jacket, he stabbed it into the shoulder just above the wound and pushed.
With a grunt, he ripped it out a moment later, tossed it to the floor, and risked a quick glance around the corner as the painkillers kicked in.

Nothing.

Just swirling dust (that probably disturbed only by him recently) and... No, there. A blinking red light, high up, but not as high as the ceiling. It was moving slightly, back and forth. And... it stopped moving, pointing in his direction.

This time, Duncan was able to yank his head back behind the corner before the beam would have killed him. It still scorched a hole in the wall behind him and set a small fire, which guttered for a few seconds before winking out. "Wow," he breathed, "maybe it is my lucky day. What the hell is that?"

Whatever it was, it didn't appear to be moving. The wrench he tossed out into the room was left alone, but the used stimpack was vaporized before it hit the ground. "Thermal tracking. Shit. I can't ice myself. How the hell... but this is where the stuff is!"

And it was. From his vantage point on what looked like a loading dock, he could see rows of Protectrons, half-assembled, with parts for them laying in mostly-ordered rows. A veritable fortune in robots, even back when they were commonplace. He only had to get past that lethal guardian. Somehow.
"Maybe the other way..."

Limping because of his stubbed toe and clutching one hand to the oozing wound in his shoulder, Duncan moved back to the lobby and took the other hall. He ignored the obviously-jammed service elevator, and moved into the other repair bay cautiously.

No lasers greeted him. In fact, the room was silent as a tomb. For many robots, that's exactly what it was. The room had, apparently, been the site of a major battle. There were no human bodies, but robots, many with laser burns themselves, littered the floor, the catwalks higher in the room, and the stairs between. A couple had even, he guessed, tried to walk onto the loading elevator and fallen with it to the ground below when it had collapsed.

But the stairs were servicable. And there were lights up there. "All right," he muttered, "up we go. No more lasers. No more lasers."

It was clear. The various robots he passed were given no more than a cursory glance; they had all been looted to the point of worthlessness. Unless he needed much-damaged shells. Another Security Bot, too, had both weapons stripped. The only piece that might have functioned, had the circuitry not been fried by some kind of electromagnetic pulse (though Duncan could not claim to be an expert, scorched circuits with clean boards was a clear sign), would have been the sensors. As it was, though... "Useless," he said, and kicked the thing again.
"Damn it!" he yelled into the darkness, wincing again. His limp was decidedly worse as he continued along the catwalk toward the source of the light.

It was a single working computer, attached to a single working repair bay. There were more lights in a room next door, but as there was no movement, he figured he'd save the walk on his poor foot.
The monitor was already on.

"RobCo Maintenance Program Model Number blah blah... Notices, Department Memos, Security, and... what's this? I don't... GCCAATATCAGGGACTACG? What's that?" Curious, Duncan clicked the icon on the simple menu. What he got was worse. A string of garbled data, pages and pages of it, scrolled at high speed past the monitor. The only pattern he could detect was that only those four letters were used, over and over, in some kind of combination.
"Whatever... back to Security... Okay. No Pulse/EMP equipment allowed... new RobCo turrets in- holy shit! That's military hardware!"

Growling in frustration, Duncan was tempted to kick the chair laying on it's side next to the monitor, but again resisted the desire at the urging of his toe. "Okay... disable? No, of course not. Only a manager's card. Of course. Well... hard way it is. I guess I can use my grenade. That should take it down. Right?"

Of course, he received no answer but the slight hum of the computer in the otherwise silent robotic tomb.

The next room was apparently the server room for the building, though much of it was powered down. Several systems had, apparently, already been stripped. Only two small banks of lights flickered on and off, and Duncan couldn't make heads or tails of what they actually meant. But when he opened the first of two doors on the other side of the building, he screamed "Oh shit!" and slammed the door shut, throwing himself to the floor again. A moment later, the door started to smoke from a hole in the center.
"There's two of them? Come on!"

There were indeed, two of the turrets, mounted on opposite sides of what looked like the power station for the center. One had been watching the door he'd come from, the other pointed vaguely in the direction he'd been shot at from first.
With a groan at 'wasting the hardware', Duncan reached around on his backpack and fished for the last grenade he owned.

"Okay... they're below me a few feet, so if I stay low they can't hit me. I just have to get it close, even if they're military they should be taken down, right?"

Slowly, he opened the door, peering out as he did so, waiting for the slightest hint of a sensor or barrel before he slammed it shut again- there was about a second delay between visual contact and firing, he'd noticed, as if the guns still had to confirm he was a 'hostile' before opening fire.
Once it was half-way open, he could just make out the top of a turret, but the lens was below the edge of the catwalk beyond the door. With a quiet sigh of relief, Duncan pulled the pin and threw.

He was amazed at the accuracy of the throw; even from a prone position, he could see the grenade bounce off the lens of the sensor before it clattered to the floor at the turret's feet.
Duncan clenched his eyes shut and slammed his hands over his ears.

And then waited.

For a full sixty seconds, he waited.

But nothing happened.

Finally, after about five minutes, he slithered backwards, whimpering, and ran as fast as he could back to the door, back outside, back for Canterbury Trading Post.

When he stormed, furious and red-eyed, into the hostel room, Amber didn't even get out a curious "What's wrong?" before he growled, "Firepower. Now."
Grabbing up the heaviest weapons in his arsenal, Duncan stomped back out of the room. A few seconds later, as Amber heard the door below slam shut, she whispered, "Why does he need that?"

But if anyone in Canterbury thought it strange for a relative unknown to be loading a missile into a rocket launcher as he stalked down the street, no one dared give him more than a passing glance.

Boom.

After dodging four more beams by the skin of his teeth- and losing a few hairs to singing in the process- Duncan was quite satisfied with the second explosion. Throwing the smoking firing rings out into the chamber, he was more satisfied when the turrets did not try to vaporize the hot metal.
It was only then that he risked a clear view. Directly below him, there were two smoking rods of metal that once held military-grade laser turrets. Oh, and smoke, and a bit of fire. The reinforced building-inside-a-building they had been sitting on, however, appeared undamaged but for the scorch marks. The catwalk itself had been twisted upwards, but was likely still servicable. And if not... there was the other entrance, still.
Sure, it had cost him two rockets, but the lasers were gone, and now that half of the repair center was all his...

Well, all Amber's psychiatrists. Eventually, anyway. First, he had to get it out of there and back to Canterbury... maybe he should see about hiring help?

(O)(O)(O)

In the end, the young man had been forced to sell his rocket launcher (and the missiles) to cover the cost of the doctor, but it had paid for the entire six-month treatment process, as well as her hired guards- a man named Harkness and a woman named Gina- who had also agreed to accompany the group to Big Town in return for provisions to get back home on. As part of the agreement, Duncan would have to escort the woman home himself, or pay an extra thousand caps, once the treatment was done and Amber was pronounced 'fit'.
Of course, the fact that the doctor herself was a woman who strongly resembled an older version of his mother may have helped sway him to her side, but Amber did not take to the woman immediately.

In fact, within minutes of meeting each other, the younger was shouting and the older trying in vain to calm her down.
Things like "I'm not broken!" and "Shut up, hag!" were said. Duncan refused to acknowledge which side had said the most.
In the end, though, he had put his foot down. He had risked life and limb, he informed Amber in no uncertain terms, for her health. She would accept the treatment, and do her best to get better. She would treat the woman with respect, because she had also travelled a long way through dangerous territory to get there for Amber's benefit, and she would be grateful.

A part of Duncan hated himself for trying to control her, to guilt her- or whatever- into behaving. But Amber had acquiesed immediately, and the doctor had given him a greatful, and understanding, look.
That very night, Amber's sessions began. For the first half-hour, the doctor had asked Duncan to be there as she encouraged the younger woman to recount all she could recall of the experience.

It horrified him, but he remained silent.
How could he not? What could he say to make it better? Nothing.
Aside from providing this doctor, there was nothing he could do. So he sat in silence, holding her hand, as she wept. But once she'd gotten started, Amber didn't seem to have the ability to stop. In fact, she continued explaining what had happend until the doctor herself had arrived.
For a while, he'd been sure she would interrupt, halt the story. But she had not.
Instead, after Amber had fallen silent, the doctor had merely said in a soft voice, "Thank you for telling me that, Amber. I know how hard it was. I had to do the same thing, once. But now that you've clearly acknowledged what you've been through, we can truly begin. At least, that is if you'd like me to help you. I won't force you, I get paid the same regardless. Whether you have the help of someone who's trained to help you, and more, has been through a similar experience, is entirely up to you."

At the revlation of the doctor's own past, Duncan shuddered. Was it really that commonplace now?

Of course, in the end, Amber agreed.

Four days later, the guards departed from Big Town, leaving Amber and the doctor- a dark-skinned woman named Allison Cantelli- to explore his home while he spent a few hours hunting down MacReady. He had some questions for the mayor.
Questions for which he wanted answers.

A/N2: You like? Let me know!

As always, review, folks! Makes a writer's world go 'round, it does. ;)
As a heads up, I have almost decided against AFF if I have to move. More likely it'll be Ficwad, or something else. I don't mind AFF as a site, but their disorganized... mess really bothers me as a writer. I don't want my fics lost in the mess, I want people to be able to find them. I'll let everyone know as soon as I settle on a place.
Again, though, that's if I have to move. Hopefully Ffnet will see reason before then.
'till next time, chiiiildren!

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Hate me for writing this story and ruining Fallout forever for you? Let me know! Reviewing is good for your soul. +Karma -Karma! And EVERYONE loves good karma! (Don't they?)